After 9 years in one company, I am finally quitting in a month’s time.
After I made the decision to quit and prepared the first draft of the resume, it was time to consider where I wanted to work. I enjoy building and wanted to continue to do this with a small but expert team - learning as much as I could in the process. So rather than apply to a large company again, I applied to two small but interesting companies: Thoughtworks and C42. Both follow a similar process (probably because the founders of C42 are ex-Thoughtworkers themselves). An initial (casual) interview was followed by a coding assignment. In Thoughtworks, this was followed by a couple of aptitude tests, a pair-programming exercise and finally an interview which I did not do well in. At C42, my coding assignment didn’t meet the expected standards.
These setbacks were embarrassing but did contain valuable lessons. Working in the same team and people had made me complacent. I am considered technically competent but I realized there were gaps that I need to fill. I was not as good as I could and should have been. My knowledge of design was good but I was poor in Architectural aspects. I was aware of Agile & Test Driven Development but had not used them enough. I had helped create complex in-house frameworks but had neglected upcoming ones like Struts. I had used Open Source when necessary but had not contributed to it at all. I was active on the company’s internal blogs and wikis but did not even have a website of my own. In other words, I lacked the sort of credentials that the teams I was hoping to join respected and valued.
This website and blog then is my first step to addressing these issues. It is the beginning of my attempt to establish an online presence.
What will it be about? I don’t know yet. I do know that I want it to be sensible and helpful to those that read it. Perhaps I can also share some of the lessons I’ve learnt over the years through this medium. Will be a new way of doing the one thing I enjoy the most: Teaching.
Wish me luck.